Approach To Research

Possible angles to look at are years in service, types of participation, anecdotal stories that got people going or stopped, levels of participation, school setting (public/privite/elementary/secondary/district).

Will we be including ourselves in the study? Can we share our stories, too? -Agata

There are some years that people participate more than others - how will we factors this in?

What are the "levels" of participation - how would this be defined? Is a coach more involved that a sponsor, even if the sponsor works with the team on team building off the "court?"

Given that we are secondary teachers, I would suggest that we limit our research to the secondary schools - elementary schools are a whole different ball game!

Roz


Sounds good on the limiting. Additionally I guess we can define categories of investigation before we start so we can "slot" extra-curriculars into them. We could perhaps always keep it general and ask for time estimates on the extra-curricular. That can be a modification to our question.



D.

I like it. Darren, what do you mean by time estimates? Who would we ask?

We are therefore assuming that participating in extracurricular is beneficial right?

In some cases, extracurricular "work" has actually been detrimental to health and lifestyle. For example, I know of some teachers who have had their marriages go down the drain because the spend too much extracurricular time at school. I can also see how some teachers put so much time and effort into their schools that they do not have time for their personal lives.

I know this is not necessarily the perspective we are trying to look, but I am trying to think about it from a different lens.

Roz

Yup - I think that we'll have to include some discussion on this...maintaining a balance between work and extra-curricular, and personal life is a crucial point. I wonder why some teachers take on more and more work when they know their marriages or personal health is failing. Some people find it hard to remember that as much as we love teaching, it is, at the end of the day, just a job.